The Paris Protection (4 page)

Kazim smiled in his boss’s narrow pool of light and motioned to one of the platoon leaders to escort the demolition team forward.

Two men wearing heavy backpacks moved easily through the thick, parting line of mercenaries. Behind them, a group of twelve men moved forward slowly, with great caution. Maximilian had selected these twelve for their steady, controlled body movements and their proven ability to stay calm under pressure. They had trained for their roles harder than any other men in the group, for at this moment, the entire mission could fail in its infancy if any made the slightest mistake.

Maximilian saw the eerie string of headlamps stretching back down the long, straight corridor. Like all the other soldiers, he held his breath as the group of twelve moved toward him, bearing three plastic cases. It was really the first case that held his attention. It was filled with a hundred red-orange sticks of ANFFO—ammonium nitrate fertilizer and fuel oil—an explosive compound that was more stable than dynamite but carried the same punch. To protect the explosive mix from contact with water, which would neutralize it, it had been mixed with plasticizer in special packaging that made each stick look like a single sausage link.

Maximilian motioned to Kazim, who pushed the line of soldiers back down the tunnel. The two guides followed the retreating group. If they couldn’t get into the Empire of the Dead, he would need them alive more than anyone else.

The twelve men carefully set the cases down, four men to a case. They placed the case full of ANFFO fifty feet from the concrete wall, and the other two directly against the wall. Opening the tops, they lifted out a portable gas generator and a drill engine the size of a football. They then removed two yellow air-compressor hoses, an eight-foot-long drill bit, and a long metal pole with a rectangular steel plate roughly the size of a license plate on one end, and a spike on the other. Hurrying, they secured the plate to the base of the drill engine, connected the compressor hoses between the engine and the generator, and mounted the drill bit to the engine’s nose.

Maximilian watched intently as his lead engineer, a stout Ukrainian named Mozgovoy, lifted the heavy drill and shuffled toward the wall. His assistant, a burn-scarred fellow who rarely spoke, started the generator, stood the drill up on the spiked pole, and pressed the bit against the limestone just right of the much harder concrete barrier. The generator’s growl bounced continuously off the surrounding rock as Mozgovoy gently guided the bit with leather-gloved hands. It cut briefly at the limestone before spinning off target. The men repositioned it, and this time it held and burrowed violently into the rock.

Maximilian watched as the two men wrestled the drill against the stone. Three minutes later, they were sweating and panting, but they had drilled the length of the eight-foot bit into the limestone. Fifteen minutes later, they had drilled four more holes in a diamond formation around the first, center hole.

The engineers disassembled the drill, repacked it and the generator into their cases, and carried them back near the curve in the tunnel.

Maximilian glanced to Kazim and saw that the foremost men in the column had now moved all the way back around the distant curve, so they all were safely out of the blast zone.

But his focus returned to the two engineers as they opened up the case of ANFFO next to the five holes in the limestone face. First, they jammed a long wooden stick into a borehole, working it to knock down any loosened shards of rock and push them to the back of the hole. Then they slid two four-foot plastic pipes into each hole.

The demolition assistant opened his backpack and grabbed the first of many spools of braided red and blue wire. As he unraveled a few feet, Mozgovoy took out a stick of ANFFO, wrapped the end of the wire around the front end, and tied it securely with a loop. Then he slid the stick into the plastic pipe stabilizing the center hole and used the tamping bar to gently push the packaged explosive compound to the back of the hole, pulling the wire through with it. Seven more sticks, one at a time, followed the first, until the center hole was completely filled with ANFFO.

They repeated this process for the other four holes.

Maximilian glanced at his watch and noted they were still barely within the planned time frame. They needed to move a little faster to make sure they didn’t fall too far behind schedule, but this was the one part of the mission that they couldn’t afford to rush.

The engineers opened the other backpack and took out the yellow nonelectric detonator control. They had explained to Maximilian that electrical-current detonators could still be accidentally triggered by sparks, so mining demolition teams generally used non-els. The men taped together the five wires extending from the holes and made sure the blasting caps were properly connected. The non-els were a hollow tube containing a tiny bit of special powder that, once the Primacord set off the powder, would rush through the tube and set off the blasting cap, which, in turn, would detonate the explosive.

Mozgovoy was ready to light the three-foot safety fuse that would set off the Primacord and the near-instantaneous chain reaction of the detonation. Maximilian had made sure his men were at a safe distance from the blast zone and would now insert their earplugs and put on gas masks to protect them from the hazardous fumes and rock particles that would soon fill the air in the confined tunnel.

Once the ANFFO was set off inside the five holes, it would create a high-pressure area beyond the rock’s ability to withstand, creating a zone of cracked rock within four feet of the lines of explosives. The explosion would also generate a shock wave, which would continue the cracking process. The explosive gases would expand quickly, forcing the cracks apart, shattering the limestone and ejecting it into the open parts of the tunnel.

The engineers had made the final connection with the non-els while the same four men who had carried in the ANFFO case now removed it from the blast zone. Only half the explosives brought into the tunnels had been used at the barrier.

“Make sure masks are on!” Maximilian yelled to the first men in the column who were within earshot. Their actions would push the message to all the men along the queue stretching back into the tunnel.

He moved toward them and stood by Kazim. Then he put on his face mask with air filter and looked through the plastic lens. The hollow sound of his breath through the device reminded him of a deep-sea diver.

The engineers moved toward him. Mozgovoy held in his hand the yellow ignition device connected to the wirelike non-el tube attached to the five wired blasting caps.

“We’re ready, sir,” he said through his mask. “Say the word.”

“Do it,” Maximilian ordered.

“Fire in the hole,” Mozgovoy yelled. “Three . . . two . . . one . . .”

Maximilian barely noticed the man turn the two plastic knobs on the detonator. Then he heard a quick, two-part crack that sounded like lightning striking right beside him. The force blew rocks down the curve of the tunnel toward them. Then came a slow brown cloud of dusty limestone particles that sparkled in his headlamp beam as if he were shining it into a blizzard at night.

Maximilian made sure his men stayed back while the engineers did their follow-up inspection. He watched the two men walk back toward the blast zone, their headlamp beams lighting up billions of dust particles that floated in the air.

Staring in silence as their silhouettes vanished into the cloud of light, he waited for the all-clear signal. After they moved over the pile of rubble, the engineers would check for misfires and bootleg holes. Any misfires would be washed out with the small portable water spray. The water would also control some of the dust. Any bootleg holes could mean structural problems with the blast area and would be carefully examined.

Two minutes later, Mozgovoy came back through the dust cloud and nodded when he got close to the front of the group. (Maximilian had given orders for radio silence before the attack started, because the US Secret Service local command post would no doubt be scanning all radio channels for open or encrypted signals.)

“It’s clear and secure?” Maximilian asked as the man reached him. He could hear the other engineer still spraying water inside the newly created hole in the rock.

“The muck pile needs clearing, but most of the rock blew out here or on the other side.”

“So we’re through?” Maximilian said. “You old devil. This tops your embassy bombing.”

“Yes sir,” Mozgovoy replied. “If we pull this off, it will be our magnum opus.”

“I want to see it,” Maximilian said. Turning to Kazim, he spoke loudly through his mask. “I’m going through. Send the guides in behind me. Have some men clear the biggest rocks from the muck pile on both sides. Then start moving everyone through. Keep the remaining explosives near the front.”

Kazim nodded and began relaying orders to the platoon commanders.

Maximilian stepped away from them and moved toward the concentrated center of the dust cloud. He breathed slowly through the mask while carefully stepping over chunks of limestone the size of his head. The light was trapped in a small space around him within the cloud, as if he were bathing in particles of light and energy.

The blast had opened a new tunnel twelve feet long, paralleling the old pathway that the Paris IGC had filled with concrete to close off outside access to the catacomb tour path. Crouching, he entered the new tunnel, amazed at the power of explosives against rock. The concrete fill was exposed all along the left side of the new tunnel.

He stepped forward, and before he knew it, he was through to the other side. The space was now a narrow, four-foot-wide tunnel that extended as far to his right as he could see with his light. Just over six feet high, it was cut with almost perfect ninety-degree angles.

To his left lay most of the rubble blown out from the demolition. The blast had caused a small collapse in the reinforced stone walls, blocking most of the pathway to the left, and he planned to have his men barricade the rest of this left passage with rubble. He recognized both directions as the long access corridor near the entrance to the Paris Catacombs tour path. He looked up and confirmed this when his light revealed the broad black line painted on the ceiling. It was a guide to help Parisians avoid getting lost as they explored the catacombs by candlelight in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

He was lucky that this was the direction mostly blocked by the rubble, and not to the right. Left went toward the tour’s entrance, and right went into the catacombs. He looked down and saw a door-size metal gate, bent and blown away from the side tunnel. He would have some men clear the backfill rubble on the right, throwing it into the pile to further block the left path.

He stepped over a few more sizable rocks until he was again standing on the smooth, lightly graveled tunnel floor. Something on the wall caught his eye, and he shined his light on it. It was the famous plate with the chiseled-out fleur-de-lis. He had read about it in his studies of the city’s underworld.

A smile broke out on his face as the excitement of this moment energized him. They had made it through. He was inside the Paris catacombs.

6

AS KAZIM STEPPED INTO THE tunnel behind him, Maximilian turned and then laughed at the man’s expression of awe. “And you didn’t think it was worth it.”

“To blow through twelve feet of rock just so that we might walk past the dead? No, I didn’t. But you still think it’s important?”

“Not important—
essential,
” Maximilian replied. “When the story of tonight is told, the conjured images of us approaching through the catacombs will be imprinted on the imaginations of all who hear it.”

Four men worked fast to remove the rubble from the path near the explosion. They had needed only a minute to clear what remained on the path. Maximilian saw one throw the last piece of rubble onto the large pile of broken limestone, which now completely blocked access in the direction of the tour entrance.

“The men are ready?” he asked Kazim.

“Yes.”

“Tell them.”

Kazim ducked his head into the blasted tunnel and yelled, “We’re ready! We’re moving! March!”

Hearing the men start moving in the darkness, Maximilian turned from the demolition tunnel and began jogging down the long, narrow corridor. His head came close to hitting the rock ceiling as he ran. The tunnel was lined with limestone bricks on both sides. A plastic guard on the upper left wall ran the length of the tunnel, protecting cables for the wiring of the lights (which were turned off after tour hours), the emergency call boxes and speakers, of which there were perhaps a dozen, and the air conditioning system, which had been installed to help generate air flow in the catacombs after they were sealed off from the rest of the tunnel system in the 1990s.

Some dust was still in the air, but they had moved far enough from the blast zone that it was only barely noticeable. The rock path’s surface was smooth from the traffic of a quarter-million tourists each year. The occasional plastic information plaques fixed to the walls gleamed like ice as his headlamp caught them in the darkness.

He jogged for over a minute in a mostly straight path, taking only a few turns in the single tunnel before reaching the Atelier—a “turned pillar” wider than a car, made up of a solid uncut mass of limestone, which the original quarry inspection unit had cut around. Left there three centuries ago to help prop the ceiling up, it looked like a giant redwood trunk that axmen had hewn at from all sides before giving up. He ran past on the right. 

After another hundred meters, the walls turned from limestone brick to rough-cut solid limestone that looked like stucco in his light.

As he ran through winding catacombs, any sense of time and distance fell away. He felt like a modern Theseus in a labyrinth created centuries ago and now kept by the dead. It was like no earthly place, as if, at any moment, he might stumble onto a secret gateway to hell.